WebCommentary

Brief remarks published in the 'Comments' sections of weblogs and
periodicals here and abroad. Dates refer to comments, and "(AJ)" refers to ArtsJournal,
which hosts most of the weblogs. Suggestion: read the original piece first, then
click on "comments" link if there is one, search for "Aristos," or scroll down to
find your humble co-editor's name. -- Louis Torres

February 2011

NOTE: Entries from September 3 to December 24, 2010, are new, and annotations have been added to comments from March 30 to August 30. Links to
January and February 2011 comments will be posted in our next issue. --L.T.

2010

12/24:Art Newspaper, "Flavin and Viola Light Works Ruled 'Not Art.'" The European Commission, an arm of the European Union (I'm not a fan), has ruled
that works by Dan Flavin (consisting solely of arrangements of colored fluorescent tubing--at times, of just a single tube) are not art but "lighting fittings."
Makes sense to me. (See also 12/23 New York Times item below.)

12/24:Wall Street Journal, "It's a Norman Rockwell Christmas, and Dan French Is Out in the Cold." That would be Daniel Chester French (1850-1931), please, who sculpted the seated Lincoln in Washington, D.C. "Dan" is how the inept head of the avant-garde-leaning advisory board at Chesterwood, French's
summer estate (a National Trust Historic Site), refers to the great sculptor.

12/23:New York Times, "Is It Art, or Is It Lighting?" On Dan Flavin's fluorescent tubes and the European Commission's ruling that it's not art. (See also 12/24
Art Newspaper item above.)

12/23:Wall Street Journal, "When Subjectivism Ruled." All photography--not just the "pictorialist" photography of the 1890s to the 1910s--is art, this review
would have readers believe. I compare one such photograph to a painting by Jean-François Millet (1814-1875), one of the greatest artists of the nineteenth
century (and a personal favorite, I might add).

12/22:Slipped Disc (AJ), "Dutch Play 4'33" on Prime Time TV." On John Cage's infamous silent "music composition." View the video first, then see my very brief comment in the color rectangle. (No, that's not a speck of dust on your monitor screen!)

11/24:Chronicle Review, "Art Programs Stress Studio Safety." "How does one judge a collegiate art program?" Not primarily by any of the standards cited by
Daniel Grant, including that of "studio safety." In the present day there's an even more important criterion that must be met.

11/22:Wall Street Journal, "Artsy Sag Harbor Is Up in Arms About a Long, Shapely Pair of Legs." No, no, not real legs! A 16-foot-high "legs sculpture" that
is "indisputably a work of art [by Larry Rivers, a 'master']--whether you like it or not," according to an art historian--or the product of a "guy [who is a]
whack job," as a local citizen has heard.

11/12:Seeing Things (AJ), "Gimme Shelter." Tobi Tobias, one of the most astute dance critics in the business (she is cited frequently in What Art Is) invited
me to comment further because, as she put it, she knows something of my work in Aristos. Of course, I did so. Other readers chimed in as well. (Read comments in the order they were posted, from the bottom up.)

11/6:Sandow (AJ), "Making It Work--Finishing (for Now). Greg Sandow, an activist music critic and consultant who "challenges . . . old assumptions," once
hosted a concert series featuring such extras as the shaving of the head of an audience volunteer while the Pittsburgh Symphony orchestra played the
"Bacchanal" from Samson and Delilah. Would you subscribe to another season?

11/3:Slipped Disc (AJ), "What the House of Commons Culture Committee Wanted to Know." What it wanted to know was "What's wrong with the Arts
Council?" Norman Lebrecht suggested "huge budgets lavished on non-arts social and political ventures." For my own answer, just strike three adjectives and a
conjunction from his.

10/24:Foot in Mouth (AJ), "Conundrum: How to Write About Left Field Shows." The title alludes to dances that do not use an "academic or codified
language"--to "experimental" dance in other words. Apollinaire Scherr is correct in implying that the work in question is not dance. To read her full review
you must follow the Financial Times link she provides.

10/21:Real Clear Arts (AJ), "Glenn Lowry and Contemporary Art." In a brief post which refers to "contemporary art" eleven times (and once to
"contemporary artist"), Judith Dobrzynski wonders if "the content of contemporary art [is] failing to do what it is supposed to do." I suggest an answer, though
not one with which she would likely agree.

10/5:Art Newspaper (U.K.), "No More Contemporary Art in Versailles' Royal Rooms After Murakami." Traditionalist protest groups have succeeded in stopping future avant-garde exhibitions in the chateau's royal spaces. Good for them. (More Murakami bogus art: Kaikai Kiki and Flower Matango.) The
deputy editor of the Art Newspaper had read a brief comment I had posted online (it's not archived) and invited me to submit a letter for publication in the
paper's print edition. The following abridged version was published in the December issue.

Jean-Jacques Aillagon, the director of Versailles, may have "caved in" to pressure from groups protesting against the exhibition of contemporary "art" in
the royal apartments, but in the U.S. we have our own museum directors who flout the purpose of their collections. A current exhibition (until 2 January
2011) at the Morgan Library in New York features "drawings" by Roy Lichtenstein that are flagrantly antithetical to the museum's holdings in 16th- to
19th-century master drawings.

10/3:Wall Street Journal, "Hear It, Feel It." Heading: "Are we hard-wired to hear emotion and meaning in music? Scientists probe the puzzling world of sound
and sense." This interesting review of Philip Ball's The Music Instinct gave me an opportunity to quote a lengthy passage from our discussion of Ayn Rand's
little-known theory of music in What Art Is.

9/24:Prospect (U.K.), "In Praise of Dead White Men." Heading: "Efforts to make education more "relevant"to black people can be both patronising and
harmful. The western literary canon should be taught to everyone." Agreed. I cite the black poet Langston Hughes's practice of reading poems by Longfellow
and Walt Whitman, among other dead white poets, to black school children.

9/20:New Scientist, "Can Video Games Be Art?" Game designers and a bunch of art critics, journalists, academics and historians (all of whom are "avowed
gamers") answer this question. One of the best answers was by philosopher Denis Dutton.

9/18:Wall Street Journal, "Portrait of an Artist's Hype." Regarding works by Gerhard Richter at an exhibition at the Drawing Center, I agree with art critic
Lance Esplund (with whom I rarely agree about anything) that they "never add up to anything substantial enough to be considered drawings."

9/9:Grand Central Academy of Art (weblog), "Landscape Painting Show at Kaaterskill Fine Arts." I cite a Smithsonian Magazine review of a similar
exhibition, "Remember the Ladies: Women of the Hudson River School," which is followed by comments (including one by me).

9/8:Real Clear Arts (AJ), "The Difference Between Art and Politics, And Thank Goodness." I argue that in addition to not liking abstract art, many (if not most
) ordinary people do not think it is art. One other reader, who begins her comment with "Bravo, Louis Torres," agrees with me. Two others (one of whom calls
me "Luis") don't. An interesting post and discussion.

9/3:Wall Street Journal, "Drawn Into His Web." Robert Greskovic, who writes on dance for the paper, praises an event sponsored by the Dance Theater
Workshop featuring a guy who stands in place with his back to viewers--while drawing on a wall with both hands at once, as if he were "Leonardo da Vinci's
Vitruvian Man in contemporary clothing."

8/30:Education Next, "Advocating for the Arts in the Classroom." Michelle Kamhi and I comment separately on Mark Bauerlein's mostly astute article. I
question his reference to "innovative, boundary-breaking art." Scroll down for Bauerlein's response to me. (See next item and also his contribution to the
"Social Justice" forum in the November 2010 Aristos.)

8/28:Wall Street Journal, "When Creator and Owner Clash." I side with the maker of a Holocaust memorial in his dispute with the parks department that
modified it against his wishes--but not because the memorial is a "work of art" protected under the Visual Artists Rights Act, enacted as an amendment to the U.S. Copyright Code in 1990. It is design.

8/25:Wall Street Journal, "He Painted the Body Athletic." Agreement with Andrew Malone regarding his assessment of the article and its subject, Thomas
Eakins (about whom I have written), and thanks to him for having provided a link to a superb Eakins website I didn't know about.

8/6:Lies Like Truth (AJ), "Where Birds Go Off to Die" [read all before clicking this link]. My comment that "models are models and art is art" regarding a
"paper sculpture" prompted three readers to respond: the gallery director, someone who "totally" agrees with me, and a colorful character who doesn't. I reply.
(Scroll down and read comments from the bottom up.)

8/6:Wall Street Journal, "What the Camera Wrought." Richard B. Woodward begins his review of a photography exhibition with this assertion: "That art can
be made of anything . . . is a truism now widely accepted by critics and audiences alike." True only in part. Do you, for example?

8/3:The Guardian (U.K.), "The 10 Best Dancers" [Click on "Comments" to right of headline, then scroll down to Aug. 3 comment by "esthetics (that's me)].
I cite the example of American Ballet Theatre principal Bill Carter [scroll down to "A Personal Note"], who was a friend and who died of AIDS in 1988 at age 52. A reader's post below mine expresses kind appreciation (8/3), followed by my brief reply to him (8/6), and his to me (8/8).

7/21:The Guardian (U.K.), "Noises Off: What's the Difference Between Performance Art and Theatre?" Just a brief comment on this one: "Theatre is art.
Performance is fraud," but you may find some of the other comments of interest, not to mention the article itself. It cites Marina Abramovic, the "self-proclaimed 'grandmother of performance art,'" whom I saw staring at successions of museum visitors who volunteered to sit silently opposite her for indefinite periods at her recent retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art. See the four-part multimedia feature "The Artist Is Present," especially the "portraits" of the poor souls who willingly participated in the event with Abramovic, who is either a charlatan or mentally unbalanced. (On the latter phenomenon, see Louis Sass, Madness and Modernism: Insanity in the Light of Modern Art, Literature, and Thought.)

7/20, 21, 23:City Journal, "Classical Music's New Golden Age." Yet another insightful article by Heather Mac Donald, a non-specialist who is one of the very
best writers on the arts today, particularly on the subject of music. Winner of two Aristos Awards (2007, for "The Abduction of Opera," and 2002), Mac
Donald sees much to be optimistic about concerning the state of classical music today, including the influence of the "early music" movement, the caliber of
musicianship, and the sheer quantity of music available, both live and in recordings. The future, she notes, looks bright. On July 20 (search for "bio") I offer
general comments of praise for the article. On the 21st I reply to two commentators, one who responds to a remark of mine, the other who is critical of Mac
Donald. Finally, on the 23rd I cite, and provide several links related to, the neo-classical composer Stefania de Kenessey.

7/19:The Guardian (U.K., "Music and Sentiment by Charles Rosen." This fine review of the latest book on music by the renowned pianist gave me an
opportunity to give readers a link to "Music and Cognition," Chapter 5 of What Art Is: The Esthetic Theory of Ayn Rand.

7/11:Wall Street Journal, "Where Paint and Poetry Meet." They don't. I take issue with Judith Dobrzynski's claim that Charles Demuth's well-known painting
of a vibrant number 5--The Figure 5 in Gold (1928)-- is a "transliteration into paint" of William Carlos Williams's poem, "The Great Figure." Compare the
two and decide for yourself.

6/27:Wall Street Journal, "Too Complicated for Words" A sentence beneath this headline of Terry Teachout's column poses the question "Are our brains big
enough to untangle modern art?" Regular readers of Aristos will not be surprised by my argument that, in most cases, there is nothing there to be "untangled."

6/23:Wall Street Journal, "Art and Nature, Hand in Hand." I suggest that the Indianapolis Museum of Art ought to have shed its avant-garde bias and
commissioned real sculpture by "'emerging' and underappreciated midcareer artists" for the opening of its "100 Acres" park. A reader is critical of the three
traditional sculptors I suggest the Museum might have considered.

6/21 :The Chronicle Review (weekly magazine of The Chronicle of Higher Education), "In Praise of Tough Criticism." In comment 32, I cite my April 2010
review "What Makes Art Art? Does Denis Dutton Know?" (See also comments 33 and 34 by me, the latter of which mentions the forthcoming "June" 2010
issue of Aristos, which was eventually posted in . . . November.)

6/21:The Guardian (U.K.), "The Human Heart of the Matter." The article notes that the great books about war in our time are not novels, as might be expected,
but non-fiction. I suggest that this may in part be due to the fact that there are no novelists writing today who are capable of writing such stories, and cite Jack
Schaefer's magnificent 'Company of Cowards' (set during the Civil War).

6/8:The Art Newspaper, "Funding: The Sate of the Art." Heading: "In a world mired in economic uncertainty and with cash for the arts disappearing, how do
we argue for culture?" András Szántó's argument in favor of increased support for the arts is based on several false assumptions, including that art is "a form of
disruptive innovation." Spoken like a true avant-garde apologist.

5/12:Wall Street Journal, "Branching Out Atop the Met Museum." Heading: "With 'Big Bambú,' Doug and Mike Starn Have Erected a Surrogate Forest, At
Once Artificial and Natural." Here's "Big Bambú" (on the roof of the Met), which critic Karen Wilkin terms an "exuberant invention"--not a "significant
sculpture," "more of a phenomenon," but sculpture in her view nevertheless.

4/30:Real Clear Arts (AJ), "Whitney Biennial: Too Much Talk About Process." "Process" here means "technique"--how a painting, say, is made. But maybe
that's all there is to talk about if a work has no "substance," no real meaning.

4/16:Orange County Register (The Arts Blog), "Some at MoMA Show Forget 'Look But Don't Touch." As the summary statement at the start of the Comments section put it: "The Marina Abramovic retrospective, which features nudity, has generated unwelcome behavior by visitors." None that I saw. Young models of both sexes re-enacted (if one can call it that) "performance art" pieces originated by Abramovic and her then lover/collaborator in the late 1970s and 80s. My comment (#314) consists of brief praise for each of a few of my fellow commentators who had the courage to go against the artworld grain and say, or imply, "not art" about it all. (Note link "Back to Article" at the end of the headline.)

4/14:Wall Street Journal, "Lone Star Stadium of Art." Original works--mostly abstract--made for Cowboys Stadium in Dallas are colorful, but are they art?
The writer thinks so, but I say no in a brief remark that singles out one work, Cheering Crowd[detail], which is made from a photo taken at a Nascar race. The
other pieces are decorative art of a type befitting a football stadium.

4/5:Dewey21C (AJ), "Jane Remer's CliffNotes: Counting the Arts as An Act of Faith." Remer ends by saying "I know, I know, we still need to define 'arts'"
(or "art" as I suggest). "Still need to"? To her credit, however, she argues against using the arts as agents of social reform. I cite links to a book and an article on these topics that might interest her.

11/17: Leonard Lopate Show, WNYC: "Why Architecture Matters" (scroll
down to end for my comment). Listen to interview with architecture critic Paul
Goldberger. In my brief comment I cite "At His Father's Knee," my review of
John Silber's Architecture of the Absurd: How "Genius" Disfigured a Practical
Art in response to comment by a listener who hoped that Goldberger would
mention Silber's book. He did not. In his book Why Architecture Matters,
Goldberger makes such foolish statements as "Art is defined largely by
intention, and so is architecture [6]," and "architecture is art and it is not art . . .
art and not art, at once [8]." Silber would scoff at such gibberish, which
Goldlberger repeats soon after the start of the interview.

10/13:Real Clear Arts (AJ): "A Change in Culture: Why Mario Resca Could
Be Good For Italy." Resca is charged with transforming Italy's cultural
treasures and plans to appoint expert advisors in "classic/modern art" and
"contemporary art." My advice to him is that he needs a third advisor to
counter the advice he'll receive from the second one.

10/6:Real Clear Arts (AJ): "New Old Masters: Young British Artists--No, Not
Them--Look Back." While I have reservations about the exhibition under
consideration here, my brief comment refers to a link in the very last sentence
of this post. That link leads to a sobering previous post by Real Clear Arts
criticJudith Dobrzynski regarding the unfortunate fact that art students just
"won't go to art museums," preferring to view works exclusively online.

10/6: Real Clear Arts (AJ): "Discovering Robert Bergman, An Art World
Cinderfella Story." I refer the reader to an article by weblogger Judith
Dobrzynski on Bergman, a photographer, in the Wall Street Journal. In the
comments section of the WSJ article, for which Dobrzynski provides a link I
discuss on whether photography is art or not (see "Newest Comments"). A
responder wrote that he could care less. Oh, well.

9/30:Wall Street Journal: "Major Miniaturist Makes Art That Comes With Its
Own Microscope: For Willard Wigan and a Handful of Nanotechnologists,
Small Is Very Big." A rare two-word comment by me to see if anyone would
respond. Someone did, writing in rebuttal: "Everyone is allowed their own
opinion. They are not required to have yours." How true, but. . . .

9/24:Real Clear Arts (AJ): "A New Theory About Pollock's Mural: He Hid His
Signature." Comment is not on Henry Adams's inconsequential new book on
Jackson Pollock (the subject at hand), but on Judith Dobrzynski's surprising
implicit agreement with the prurient-prone scholar's unsubstantiated thesis that
the painter Thomas Eakins had molested his niece and caused her gruesome
suicide at age twenty-four. Dobrzynski intended no such thing, as she makes
clear in a response to my comment.

Adams, who is chairman of the Department of Art History and Art at Case
Western University in Cleveland, taught a course entitled "Acts of Genius:
The Arts of Humankind: The Renaissance to the Present" last spring. Among
the works of "genius" featured was a "dismembered shark," presumably
Damien Hirst's [more] [video] now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

8/27:Wall Street Journal: "Getting an Earful at the Museum." On museum
audio and multimedia guides--I advise against them, especially the first time a
museum visitor sees an exhibition.

8/13:Real Clear Arts (AJ): "A Brilliant No-Brainer Idea at U-Penn Focuses on
Art (How Refreshing!) My critique of a plan to have incoming freshman at the
University of Pennsylvania study Thomas Eakins's great painting The Gross
Clinicthen be prepared to discuss it at the start of the academic year. A good
idea--the image of Dr. Gross is one of the most compelling in American
art--but not the way Penn intends to carry it out. (The painting is currently not
on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art as it is undergoing restoration.)

5/24:Wall Street Journal: "Changing the Art on the White House Walls."
(Don't miss video interview with the two writers. Click on "Comments" under
the headline, then "Sort by: Newest," and see third comment. See also 6/5 Out
and About entry above.)